Mike Foran
Forum Replies Created
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Interestingly, I can open the files in Photoshop, and then save them as EXR files and those modified EXRs open fine in After Effects. I’m not sure if any additional channel data beyond RGBA is preserved however, as I don’t think these files have any depth, velocity, or other channels.
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Thank you. The OpenEXR plugins are now included with After Effects. They are licensed, I think, so it’s not something developed directly by Adobe. However, these plugins are what I refer to when I said “natively.” Nonetheless, I checked their online manual to see if I was doing anything wrong, or for troubleshooting, to no avail.
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Ok yeah I got it. Thank you!
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Thanks, that makes sense. I don’t quite get how you’re linking and parenting. Can you please break it down for me a little more specifically? Thank you.
Edit: Specifically, can you please clarify this: “You could link the properties to each transformation”
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After all these years I am still in awe of your mastery. Works like a charm. Thanks so much Dan!
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That’s a good thought, thanks. The matte is the thing though. There are so many other uses for it if I could create it.
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I’m not sure I made my intent clear. Here are a couple screenshots. The first shot shows standard application of the Drop Shadow effect on multiple overlapping objects. You can see that the shadow is rendered on the transparent areas. The second is the technique I currently would use to change that. I duplicate all the layers, then set the underlying layers to fill, offset and blur, and then activate the Preserve Transparency switch. It’s cumbersome to work with.
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Well they would have to cast shadows on each other. So imagine if I had 100 shape layers moving around, each with the drop shadow effect applied. But where the background is transparent, no shadow could be cast.
There are ways to do it but they are all a pain to set up or slow. I could duplicate each layer, set the lower layer to be the shadow, and then set it’s Preserve Transparency switch. Or I could make them all 3D layers, separate them in Z space slightly, and add a light. Neither option is great. If I could preserve transparency like I want it would be a single layer effect and a breeze to set up. And the matte would be helpful in other capacities too.
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I agree, that creating one huge video is going to be a memory and CPU disaster. Break the shot up into more manageable pieces and use a master null to pan them through the main comp. If your master null gets too far offscreen, create another one and parent the first null to it.
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Thanks, I’ve done combinations like that in the past. It’s a cool technique, but it would be impractical in this case. I might be dealing with hundreds of layers. I’m looking for something that would work on many more layers automatically. Ideally it wouldn’t be a processor hog either, although I suspect the calculations might grind everything to a halt. The ‘Preserve Underlying Transparency’ switch is pretty fast though, so I thought it might be possible.
